Month: October 2016

Autumn not only brings us the change of season, but also fun events such as Halloween and Bonfire Night. In the spirit I felt I should make a selection of Halloween themed fairy cakes. These are super easy to do for both children and adults, here’s how:

Recipe

You can use any basic fairy cake recipe. I used the following ingredients, all mixed into a bowl. Spoon into fairy cake cases and place in the oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown, temperature 180°C.

Here is the fun part! Once your cakes have cooled from the oven you can decorate them with any Halloween theme you like. This year I have made a selection of monster faces and white chocolate mice toppers. Marshmallows can make good ghosts, or if you fancy something more challenging why not try making pumpkins from roll out icing!

The monster faces have been made using Aero mint balls and melted milk chocolate.

Have you baked anything Halloween inspired? Would love to hear from you.

Yes, it’s true, with the weather taking a chillier turn over the past week I now feel it is time to wave goodbye to the summer months and readily welcome autumn with open arms. For any of you that know me will know that I have a full membership as a sun worshipper and my most hated weather is rain, but this year I am looking at autumn with optimism and trying to see the positives of a less favoured time of year, so here goes my top ten…

Number one has got to be the change of colours. Before we embrace the bleak look of winter and the trees look depressingly bare, autumn throws us a medley of warm tones from bright sun yellow to deep gold to burnt orange to berry red!

As much as I do love my summer wardrobe, there is something comforting and homely about wearing jumpers, boots and woolly hats.

Going from comfortable clothing to comfort food! Autumn food is wholesome and hearty, its the season to eat things like pies, sausages and mash and casseroles!

Make use of the evenings drawing in, now that we are unable to spend long evenings in the garden with Pimms, it is perhaps time to be a little bit more productive! I have some great ideas for crafting projects so make sure you check back on the blog to see what I have been up to!

Leaves, yes leaves! Country walks in the woods with the crisp leaves underneath your welly boots.

Bonfires and fireworks. Remember remember the 5th of November! This year bonfire night falls on a Saturday, which makes it more practical for attending local displays. Also hoping that it means the displays will be condensed into 2/3 days as our beautiful Dalmatian is NOT a fan!

Mulled wine, as soon as it turns cold it is acceptable to drink mulled wine and red wine (white for the summer, red for the winter in my book). Every pub that has a fire should have a plentiful stock of mulled wine all autumn/winter long.

TV, there’s no denying it the programme options get much better at this time of year.

The cooler weather does make it easier to go running with the dog and means that I am not entering the gym already looking hot and bothered!

Apologies to any Bah Humbugs but I have to add this as number ten, the countdown to Christmas and the festive season is on!

I hope you have enjoyed the read, I’d love to know what makes you love the autumn season, comments below 🙂

I have made an autumn resolution – there needs to be more baking and cooking in my life!

With the nights drawing in, I will be forced to spend less time in the garden and will be filling my time with more homemade goodies from the kitchen instead. As well as experimenting with cakes I am hoping to make my own pies and turn my hand to curries too. So first off the mark here we have homemade cupcakes with a twist!

Preheat the oven to 180°C and line 2x 12 hole fairy cake tins with paper cases. Into a mixing bowl measure the flour, caster sugar and butter. Lightly beat the eggs and add to the bowl along with the vanilla extract and milk. Using an electric whisk mix together all ingredients until you have a smooth consistency. Spoon the mix into the paper cases so they are roughly half full. Place in the oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. To check they are cooked through insert a wooden skewer and ensure it comes out clean.

I made both a chocolate mix and a vanilla. For the chocolate add in 3 tbsp of cocoa powder and another tbsp or two of milk to ensure the mix is not too thick.

Now, here is the twist! I wanted the cupcakes to not be the standard cupcakes but instead take more of a traditional victoria sponge format. So with some of the cakes that had not risen as much, I pushed them out of the cases and added them as toppers on the other cakes. In between I added both raspberry jam (I prefer raspberry to strawberry) and buttercream to ensure they held together and also to create the typical victoria sponge look. For some of the other cakes I removed them from their cases, sliced them in half and added the jam and buttercream in the centre, then popped them into new cases so they looked presentable. And here they are finished…ta da!

Topped with buttercream icing and milk chocolate chips, these not only looked good but tasted incredible!